“In the case of Mr. Colburn I adopted quite a different method. I had become a customer of his, and had encouraged his son to confide in me. From him I gradually learnt his father’s habits and peculiarities, particularly that of smoking a pipe in the shop after lunch, and, when he had finished it, of refilling it and putting it away on a shelf. I examined the pipe in young Colburn’s absence, and noticed that it was cracked. That evening, I visited a tobacconist at some distance from here and bought a pipe of similar make and shape.

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